Help me build a computer

[1JimMarch]

I would go with a medium-grade ATI video card over NVidia right now. Too many quality control issues with NVidia lately. Something in the medium 4000 series with 512megs RAM should do nicely in a desktop - new enough to run OK and be fully driver supported, old enough to be in the $100-$150 range unless you're a gamer who wants to go bigger.

This thing for $75 is all most folks need:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814103071

If that one card doesn't go the whole five years, that's OK, the stuff out there now for $300 will be worth $75 three years from now...

(This is a process I call "surfing behind the curve" and it can give you huge price/performance benefits.)

ATI is also giving more info to the open source community, so driver support is getting better and better. In a couple years when you might finally be willing to stop drinking the MS kool-aid, an ATI card will put you in great shape to jump to a real OS .

[locosway]

If you or a friend can't build the machine then look for a reputable shop that's local. If you're concerned with a good warranty and need customer service then I'd suggest Dell.

As for hardware, I'd stick with Intel even though I'm a long time AMD fan.

4GB's of RAM is enough at this time unless you have special needs.

1TB HDD is large enough for most people, however never keep all of your eggs in one basket. Since hardware is so cheap you may want to look into a RAID solution with 3 1TB drives.

Also, if you're into good sounds then don't use the onboard audio unless you get a decent board with a good chipset.

[locosway]

I would go with a medium-grade ATI video card over NVidia right now. Too many quality control issues with NVidia lately. Something in the medium 4000 series with 512megs RAM should do nicely in a desktop - new enough to run OK and be fully driver supported, old enough to be in the $100-$150 range unless you're a gamer who wants to go bigger.

This thing for $75 is all most folks need:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814103071

If that one card doesn't go the whole five years, that's OK, the stuff out there now for $300 will be worth $75 three years from now...

(This is a process I call "surfing behind the curve" and it can give you huge price/performance benefits.)

ATI is also giving more info to the open source community, so driver support is getting better and better. In a couple years when you might finally be willing to stop drinking the MS kool-aid, an ATI card will put you in great shape to jump to a real OS .

I can't recommend ATI with a straight face. They've been plagued by terrible support for drivers just until a couple years ago. Not to mention Nvidia has always really put a hurt on them.

If you're looking for a company that's Linux compatible Nvidia has some good Linux drivers even though they aren't open source.

[Corbin Dallas]

i'm looking for a solid machine thats in the 800 dollar ballpark without breaking the bank,

4gb RAM,

1TB HD,

Quality power supply,

DVD/CD ROM

and a DVD/CD burner (Yes I want dual drives)

Decent cooling

You are not going to hit your mark as a custom build.

I would recommend an off the shelf unit with an upgrade combo drive and maxed out ram.


Just to give you a good starting point, a "quality" powersupply starts in the 650W range and alone averages $100

A good case that has at least 2 5.25" bays and room for 2 HD's with a standard motherboard slot will cost you another $100 on average.

With just these 2 components, you've blown 25% of your budget.

Now, if you want something that will last you 5 years (assuming moore's law) you will need to get the best of the best now.

A good quad-core intel processor is yesterday's top of the line. Move forward to the new I7 (icore) 6 core processor which even at the lowest number will cost you near $600.

So without memory, HDD's or DVD's, you've now blown your $800 budget.


So, with your budget, I would look for a pre-built system that meets your needs within your budget.

[Corbin Dallas]

I can't recommend ATI with a straight face. They've been plagued by terrible support for drivers just until a couple years ago. Not to mention Nvidia has always really put a hurt on them.

If you're looking for a company that's Linux compatible Nvidia has some good Linux drivers even though they aren't open source.

Although I would agree in the past, AMD has since bought ATI and the Linux support for the new cards is outstanding.

However, Nvidia still has better Linux support overall.

[Flogger23m]

I can't recommend ATI with a straight face. They've been plagued by terrible support for drivers just until a couple years ago. Not to mention Nvidia has always really put a hurt on them.

I feel the same about Nvidia. Add the fact that the AA and image quality doesn't look as good. At least to me.

The 7900 series also seemed to have a lot of heating issues.

[locosway]

I hate it when people recommend OS's when hardware is the topic.

If he's not trying to run something completely tied into the M$ dev framework then Linux is a perfectly capable OS and could save him a lot of money in the long run.

[bombadillo]

You are not going to hit your mark as a custom build.

I would recommend an off the shelf unit with an upgrade combo drive and maxed out ram.


Just to give you a good starting point, a "quality" powersupply starts in the 650W range and alone averages $100

A good case that has at least 2 5.25" bays and room for 2 HD's with a standard motherboard slot will cost you another $100 on average.

With just these 2 components, you've blown 25% of your budget.

Now, if you want something that will last you 5 years (assuming moore's law) you will need to get the best of the best now.

A good quad-core intel processor is yesterday's top of the line. Move forward to the new I7 (icore) 6 core processor which even at the lowest number will cost you near $600.

So without memory, HDD's or DVD's, you've now blown your $800 budget.


So, with your budget, I would look for a pre-built system that meets your needs within your budget.

Maybe a bit more than expected, but for 900-1k I can find everything I was looking for and more. I could go with 3, 120mm fans, liquid cooled CPU, and lots of extras and ended up with 6 gigs of ram. This was with name brand everything and a 7 or 800w power supply. I think custom would be the way to go if I can do it all for under 1k. I already have an OS so i'm not worried too much about that. I can always upgrade to windows 7 later on down the road when i'm done with XP pro.

[1JimMarch]

However, Nvidia still has better Linux support overall.

No they don't. ATI is actually releasing info to the open source community on how to write drivers for the hardware. NVidia is NOT. Given a year or two more of THAT trend and without question, ATI is going to blast ahead. As it stands, some of the older ATI cards already have full open source driver support including some code moved into the kernel where it runs faster. I've tried an x1200 low-end ATI-based laptop with Karmic alpha and it runs GREAT with that new open source driver. That's going to move up the whole product line over time.

OS support is just one reason to buy ATI.

The other is the HUGE batch of flat-out bad chips NVidia has been shipping, esp. in the 8400/8600 range. Lawsuits are piling up; massive numbers of Apple, HP and other notebooks are affected along with an unknown number of desktops and video cards. Basically, NVidia has done a screwup possibly big enough to bankrupt them. See also:

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1028703/nvidia-g84-g86-bad

Read that and tell me NVidia is a good deal. Forget the tech side, you can avoid those bad chips, but also look at the ethics (or lack thereof) NVidia has shown. Just HP affected? Like hell.

AMD has helped ATI out a lot in terms of both financial and driver stability in Windows and Linux.

[bombadillo]

How about this. Maybe upgrade to 6gb of ram, and upgrade the cooling. If you purchase vista home premium, you get a freebie coupon to windows 7 home premium or whatever upgrade you choose, and has pretty much everything thats still very new such as chipset and processor. They're pretty much the top of the line without being the absolute latest cutting edge. As someone else said, "riding behind the wave" is what i've always done to get something tried and true without paying outrageous prices up front.

http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/system/Gamer_Xtreme_3000/

[kpw001]

I hate it when people recommend OS's when hardware is the topic.

If he's not trying to run something completely tied into the M$ dev framework then Linux is a perfectly capable OS and could save him a lot of money in the long run.

Well I think the OS is just as important as the hardware. A big example would be the hardware demands of Vista over 7 or Linux. You don't have to pay for extra RAM or dedicated video card when you can achieve just the same with less RAM and an integrated video chipset. More bang, less buck.

[locosway]

Well I think the OS is just as important as the hardware. A big example would be the hardware demands of Vista over 7 or Linux. You don't have to pay for extra RAM or dedicated video card when you can achieve just the same with less RAM and an integrated video chipset. More bang, less buck.

So you can't run a dedicated card with Vista, 7, or Linux?

What about integrated video?

Honestly, it all works... The only time you may run into issues is if you're running under 1gb of ram and want to open up an application. Then again, with Linux you could just run a small window manager like Flux and not worry about it.

[M198]

I hate it when people recommend OS's when hardware is the topic.

If he's not trying to run something completely tied into the M$ dev framework then Linux is a perfectly capable OS and could save him a lot of money in the long run.

For those of us who use our computer for gaming, Linux is not an option. Newegg is selling Vista Home Premium 64 bit for $108.00 with a free coupon to upgrade to win7. Bare bone kits are they way to go. If you already have a perfectly capable case and PSU (500W+), why pay for new ones. You can buy a new MB and CPU along with some DDR3 ram and you've got a brand new computer right there. As long and the other things in the old computer are still good like monitor, keyboard, mouse, PSU, or case, you only need to upgrade, not buy a whole new one.

[locosway]

For those of us who use our computer for gaming, Linux is not an option. Newegg is selling Vista Home Premium 64 bit for $108.00 with a free coupon to upgrade to win7. Bare bone kits are they way to go. If you already have a perfectly capable case and PSU (500W+), why pay for new ones. You can buy a new MB and CPU along with some DDR3 ram and you've got a brand new computer right there. As long and the other things in the old computer are still good like monitor, keyboard, mouse, PSU, or case, you only need to upgrade, not buy a whole new one.

I saw the Dalai Lama today, and he said something that I found interesting.

"Ignorance is the cause for our suffering"

If you think Linux can't be used for gaming then I don't know what to say. I've been using Linux to play my games for years without any more problems than a Windows computer.

[M198]

I saw the Dalai Lama today, and he said something that I found interesting.

"Ignorance is the cause for our suffering"

If you think Linux can't be used for gaming then I don't know what to say. I've been using Linux to play my games for years without any more problems than a Windows computer.

You saw the Dalai Lama today? Alright............ Anyway, sorry to hear about your suffering but let me assure you that I do dual boot Linux (Ubuntu) and have been using Linux since I has in high school (Red Hat days). I even have YellowDog installed on my PS3 which is all but pointless. Anyone ever figure how to get flash working on a 64 bit core yet? It doesn't work even when I use firefox in 32-bit move. That brings me back to my original point which is running WINE (a program that simulates running an OS that Linux geeks hate) to run COD4 seriously borders close to insanity. That's before the recompiling even starts. I never understood the act of starting an OS, then running a program (sorry, "compatibility layer") that runs like another OS so that I can maybe play the game that was meant for the OS that I didn't load to being with? That being said, I love using Ubuntu as a project, It's always fun to muck around with and for something that free, it's great. But I'd like to play my DX10 games, with Shader 3.0 and all sort of shiny things instead of reading forums on how to trick linux into running DirectX. That's just me.